Monthly Archives: January 2026

Hope and Cynicism

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I’ve been reading a couple books lately that deal with activism, disaster, and people’s responses to both natural and non-natural disasters. When I read Paradise Built in Hell written by Rebecca Solnit, she defined disasters created by man from a couple different perspective. One is historical failures and corruption that lead to buildings collapsing at a rate much higher than they should have. This is something she describes happening after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.

The other type of non-natural disasters is Elite Panic, which is the process through the elites of a country overreach and treat the people of the country or city as the enemy. This happened in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and post 9/11. 9/11 was leveraged to dramatically curtail civil liberties and launch multiple wars. In some ways, those wars haven’t ended, the war on terror is still ongoing in it’s own way and Trump is essentially using this to go after Venezuela.

Despite the set backs described through Elite panic, there is always hope that something can change. This is where the books on activism really ties into this book. I’ve read a few books focus specifically on activism, Let this Radicalize you, How to blow up a pipeline, and now Read this when things fall apart. All four of these books really highlight the hope for change that can come out of any sort of crisis.

The republicans often talk about never letting a crisis go to waste, which is something that the left and democrats needs to adhere to. However, many people on the left, myself included, are extremely cynical and roll their eyes when people talk about hope, healing, love, and all that stuff.

To be clear, I struggle with this on a regular basis. Reading some of the names given specific protest events I feel my eyes rolling despite my best effort. We can’t give into that though. We need to step back and give our selves space to hold that hope. To hold the authenticity of these protests, groups, or activists, can be a challenge, but it can also give way to a moment of freedom and release. I’ve been finding, through my own health issues and through reading books full of hope, despite the darkness of our days, I’ve been able to lean into it and have felt a sort of lightness as a result.

I truly find hope in the way everyone is protesting the actions of the Trump administration. I find hope that the world will finally push back on American imperialism starting with nominal military presence in Greenland. Trump seems bound to escalate, but I think there will be some breaking point where eventually enough Republicans will break with Trump, because they finally see the end of the road for themselves.

I truly believe the bulk of the American people will continue to push back on the horrors ICE is visiting on Minneapolis and other parts of the country. We’re seeing white people using their whiteness to protect black and brown people. They are putting life and limb at risk to push back on this crack down.

We really do need to step back from our cynicism.

We should embrace our hope.

Venezuela

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Trump escalated his attacks from random people in boats to assaulting the President of Venezuela and kidnapping him. This is horrifying. The US has continually lost credibility around being on the right side of wars since the Iraq war. We are certainly on the wrong side of this. Even if Maduro is a horrifying and awful to his people, this is not the way to drive change in the country’s leadership. Trump unilaterally did this without consulting Congress, blaming “leaks” as the reason why. Leaks don’t matter, it’s a legal requirement to notify congress before any action. Trump blatantly broke our laws along with international law in kidnapping a world leader.

This sets an awful precedent if the US government can issue a warrant and use that as the basis for kidnapping a world leader, then other countries can and will do the same. This will create a level of escalation on the world stage that we may never get back in the bottle.

Taiwan may be at risk to China. Ukraine may be at risk to Russia. Israel may do the same to the leaders in Gaza.

The US may be at risk to other countries as well. There’s no real difference between going after Venezuela than going after North Korea. Just the fact that N.K. has the Bomb, whereas the countries in South America do not have the Bomb. Which of course, does change the math a little bit.

I’m angry about this. The US is failing in the ideals we claim to be living up to. We are a rogue state at this point. I would not be surprised if we get sanctions piled on us by the UN. We should. We would do this to other countries if they had done the same.